


there's a hole in the world like a great black pit (and the vermin of the world inhabit it)

by VolxdoSioda



Series: Whumptober 2018 (Complete) [19]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Day 19 - Exhausted, Gen, Whumptober, thief!noctis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 05:37:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16402316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/pseuds/VolxdoSioda
Summary: They wanted a Prince, rather than a thief. And yet they thought he would remain lax as his father, ignoring the crimes in the laws, and the balance of government, content to reside in luxury instead.A thief protects what is theirs, no matter the course they must travel. Or in Noctis' case, no matter the weight of the burdens he must bear.





	there's a hole in the world like a great black pit (and the vermin of the world inhabit it)

Being the Crown Prince of Lucis isn't much more than a stone's throw off of being a Thief Lord of Altissia. At the very least, a lot of the lessons learned at Euclio's knee have prepared him for this; it's a lot of the same pandering and debating and sharp-eyed, quick-fingered trickery that went on during the Lords Meetings, just glossed over and shined to make it look much softer. 

Noctis takes up the jobs assigned to one of his position with the same bold-faced treachery he took to Euclio's tests, which is to say he whines and wheedles and moans and complains even as he competently fills out the paperwork needed, performs whatever task it is that requires his touch, helps the common people of Insomnia, rearranges the laws to suit their needs, and speaks discreetly to Cor on a few matters that he doesn't want surviving past it's incubation phase.

By the end of the third week, he has Regis nearly tearing his hair out in frustration, and half the Court convinced he's nothing but a slum-sucking brat who rose to his position by offering himself to people higher on the totem pole than he. Cor's eyebrows shoot up when he hears the muttered accusations, but Noctis doesn't bother defending himself. Why should he? That would go against what he wants, which is to have as many people underestimating him as possible while he wrangles his entire mess out of Regis' hands and onto his own plate.

It's no easy task, either; Ignis Scientia has the eyes of a hawk, and  _knows_ the games the Thief Lords play nearly as well as Noctis does. It takes a certain kind of maneuvering around the older man before the assassin starts to think him hopeless. It's the same with Gladiolus and his father Clarus - both of them  _know_ how to find diamonds in the rough, and they've got a particular nose for deception. It takes more effort with them and Ignis, but by the end of the fifth week he has them all convinced that it was a mistake to bring him here, to Insomnia.

They don't vocalize that, of course. But he sees it in their eyes when they look at him, in their bodies when he draws near. If Euclio were here, he would be proud. Not of the deception, but of how expertly Noctis plays the games of the Lords now, easily convincing the world around him that he is one thing, when he is in fact another.

He digs through years worth of laws, discarding, rewriting and shutting down not a few concerning slavery. And then at the next meeting with the Council he distracts everyone by stirring them up into an argument so most of them end up voting  _with_ him to get the laws shut down. The slavery clauses are quietly abolished, and the immigration system is next. 

It's hard work, deeply exhausting.  Even when he sleeps, his mind runs the scenarios through his head, and he plays chess with himself near-constantly as he tries to predict how best to steer his plans along. Because while the slavery laws were fucking terrible, the immigration system, what little there is of it, is an absolute  _nightmare._ It's not just going to be able to be demolished overnight, and it sure as fuck isn't going to be able to be snuck around like he did for the slavery laws.

He's going to have to tear this entire thing down brick by brick, and sneak them through the Council meetings, and pray that nobody sees what he's doing. Especially not the Council - a good portion of the men and women at the table are in opposition to the King's ideas, but they're also stupidly rich and stupidly racist. 

Noctis has precisely no time for anything of theirs, and so he prepares to do what Thief Lords do best, and rob the whole stinking lot right out from underneath their upturned noses.

It's one hell of a job, but someone has to do it.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

Nine months later, someone catches on. 

Noctis always swore Ignis Scientia was born in opposition to him; with that sharp mind, those quick eyes and fingers, that razor-sharp wit, he's everything Noctis is and is not, and that's what earns him the thief's blessing above all else, and why Noctis remains as Prince even as the titles and the bowing grate on him. 

It starts off simple enough. Noctis fills out more forms, rather than doing the homework assigned one night - homework is usually a quick task, a good break from the monotonous drone of the political laws, but tonight he just doesn't feel the usual relief from completing it, so he ignores it. His grades don't drop - at least not at first.

But soon it becomes a thing. Noctis ignores homework in favor of abolishing immigration clauses that make him want to eat people, and Ignis gets a notification from the school. Not a warning or anything terribly accusing, but a simple notice that Noctis hasn't  _quite_ been keeping up with his work. He's tried, honestly. But in a race between immigration and homework, immigration takes the cake every time.

"Noct," Ignis says one night at dinner, when he's trying to scarf down Ignis' food as quickly as he can so he can get back to the drawing board. "Is everything going well at school?"

"Fine," he grunts, and fails to notice the queer glint in Ignis' eyes as he watches Noctis finish his food in record time and shove back from his seat. "Gotta go do homework. Night Ig."

"Good night," Ignis calls after him softly. Were he listening, he would hear a calm quiet menace in that voice, but fixated on his job as he is, he misses it. 

Three days later, he regrets that decision immensely. 

Because Ignis Scientia went digging. First through his homework, marking down dates he missed, and then looking up what he did on those particular days. And he found a pattern of the assignments being skipped the night before Council meetings. Digging deeper, he noticed little  _changes_ in certain paperwork - more importantly, certain  _laws._

From there, it's all a downhill slide.

But as Noctis Lucis Caelum, Prince of Lucis and Thief-Lord of Altissia meets the stern gaze of his father, adviser, Shields, as well as the Council, he can't bring himself to regret it.

"Right," he says, when the silence lingers too long. "So lets get one thing straight. I am not impressed by money, or by power. The only thing I am impressed by is by my people - and my people are  _out there._ And they are suffering. So, let me be perfectly, 100%  _crystal fucking clear,_ my lads."

He rises from his chair, and now it is no longer the Prince facing them, but the  _Thief Lord_ with time magic and the ability to slit throats. "You will all be helping me abolish this absolute fuck-bucket pile of misery you call an immigration system. And if you argue with me, you'll find yourself a head shorter than you were when you came in here. Am I clear?"

"You wouldn't dare!" someone says. He doesn't particularly care who.

He puts hands on hips, tilts his head. "I was raised at the knee of the Thief Lords for damned near seventeen years. I have learned treachery, deception, casual murder, vengeful murder, and a whole host of very unsavory other tricks that you would much prefer not see the light of day. If you think I have an issue with turning this room into a slaughter house, you're very much mistaken. And if you think my father or his men can hold me long enough to stop me, then you are  _also_ mistaken. Time magic waits for no man, and I have room to spare." He flexes his fingers. 

"So, either you put this system  _down for good,_ or none of you will be leaving here alive. What's it to be?"

He hears Regis mutter something, but doesn't bother trying to catch it. He meets the gazes of the Council, of every argumentative bastard that wants to come at him, and they drop their gaze.

"That's what I thought," he says softly. "So, put it to a vote. All those in favor of opening the Wall, say  _aye."_

"Aye," the room chants monotonously.

He claps his hands together. "And the vote is carried! Wonderful! Next on the agenda--"

And so it goes on. Everyone except his father and friends trickle out eventually, and Noctis rounds on Regis as soon as they've no longer got an audience.

"I don't want to hear it," he says, as Regis opens his mouth. "How long have you been king, Regis? How long have you stood by and allowed the people coming here to suffer because you didn't want to fight things? First my death by Prophecy stills your tongue, and now this as well?" He holds out his arms to the room at large. "My kingdom for some sanity, please!"

"Noctis," Regis says, sounding tired. "There was no other way. The good of the many--"

"If you finish that sentence, you'll be losing your head, Regis. I am  _tired_ of listening to your excuses. You are a King -  _act_ like it. The fact that I, a Prince and a thief to boot, was able to get this far in a sliver of the time you have had, is abominable. It stops now, Regis. All of this. I am going to comb through every Lucian law we have, and I am going to  _rip your kingdom to shreds_ as it should have been done ages ago. Enough of this. You want me to be Prince? Then Prince I shall be, and I  _will do as I have always done,_ and take care of what is  _mine!"_

He turns on heel and marches out of the room before anyone can stop him. But he catches Ignis and Gladio and Clarus' gazes as he leaves, and he knows the game is up. They see him for what he is now - his games are at an end.

But that just means he'll have to start fighting harder, from now on. Planning even further ahead, avoiding the pitfalls and traps they'll be laying out for him. They wanted a Prince, but they were expecting someone as lackluster as his father, someone who would sit back and let the Councils of the world speak in place of their actual people. 

Noctis can't do that. Won't do that. If his father wants a Prince, a Prince he shall be. 

And he will make sure he is known throughout Insomnia by the end of this year, come the Infernian's fire or Leviathan's own tides.


End file.
